Contents

The Movie

Synopsis

"I'm so bored."

In a future dystopia, Aram Fingal (Raúl Juliá) is a lowly programmer working for Novicorp. Arts are prohibited, and he is caught watching the classic film Casablanca ("scrolling up cinemas") on his workstation. To rehabilitate him, the company transfers his mind ("doppels" him) into a wild baboon (a process which has become routine, with people buying "doppeling vacations").

Eventually, Fingal begins to enjoy his baboon existence until he finds his peaceful perch in a tree threatened by an elephant shaking it for fruit. He then activates an escape clause that is supposed to return his mind to his original body. Unknown to Fingal, however, his body has been accidentally tagged for transfer to separate wing for a sex change; and, with the computer unable to return him to his body, Fingal's mind must be kept active by storing it in Novicorp's central computer – the HX368, which controls everything from finances to the weather – until his body is located. His mind can only be maintained in such a way for a limited time before it is destroyed, forming one of the central plot points of the film.
Fingal's disappearance is reported to a rival corporation.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

The news is broadcast worldwide, causing Novicorp's share price to crash. Majority shareholders force Novicorp's Chairman (the film's main antagonist) to divert resources to keep Fingal alive and find his body. Apollonia (Linda Griffiths), a computer controller, is assigned to locate Fingal and keep him from hacking into Novicorp's mainframe.

With Apollonia's help, Fingal creates a virtual world where he encounters characters from Casablanca, including a version of Humphrey Bogart's character, Rick (also played by Raúl Juliá). Over time he grows bored (while only minutes pass in the real world, days pass in the virtual one) and plots to bring down Novicorp's finances without being removed and, thus, killed.

Apollonia tries to keep Fingal out of trouble, placing her in opposition with Novicorp's leaders, especially when she finds herself falling in love with Fingal and develops a conflict of interest. With Apollonia's considerable help, Fingal eventually "interfaces" with the mainframe and defeats his antagonists. He also returns to his body, which has been discovered before undergoing the aforementioned sex change operation.

Finally corporeal and reunited with his accomplice, Fingal and Apollonia experience a traditional happy ending, with Fingal having taken complete control of the HX368. After ordering bonuses and stocks for every employee, committing Novicorp's Chairman to a month of "compulsory rehab" via doppeling and changing both his and Apollonia's identity to Rick and Ingrid (respectively), the characters from Casablanca, Fingal, who by now has absolute and total access to and control of the system, vows to fight against the dystopian government. The film ends with the new couple walking out the door and, now free from Novicorp's oppression, talk about opening a club on the other side of town: Rick's Place.

This was the second movie in WNET's experiment in producing television movies for public television. The first was an adaptation of Ursula Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven in 1980. While Lathe was and still is well regarded, WNET's movie experiments ended after Overdrawn was an acknowledged failure.

The movie was shot on videotape in order to take advantage of cutting-edge (for their time) digital graphics and special effects.

The wild-animal footage was taken from the documentary Animals Are Beautiful People. The scene in which animals appear to be getting drunk from eating the fruit of the Marula tree is alleged to have been staged.

The film is riddled with plot holes, and with good reason as the film did not complete production.Citation needed

The Episode

Host Segments

Segment One:Mike tries a few catchphrases himself, and as usual, fails miserably (We're all out of toner!). In the spirit of the day's experiment, Pearl, assisted by Ortega, starts her own public-TV station in order to enrich herself through pledge drives.

Segment Three: Mike keeps fighting Henry, and we get to see a "very special pledge week special of a special pledge week special", "Pearl! Pearl! Pearl! Pearl! Pearl!" which features a touching if slightly repetitive duet by Pearl and Brain Guy.

Segment Four: Tom wants to be 'doppled' to the nanite world and cause trouble. He soon regrets it.

A duet by Pearl and Brain Guy

Segment Five:Bobo tries to talk Henry down, but Henry turns the tables on Bobo, and convinces him to throw things like microwaves. The bots are scared at first, but of course, when Mike takes action, the Bots scorn him. Meanwhile, Pearl counts her money.

Stinger:"Mum... 'm I nuts?"

Notes

Pearl states that she had Brain Guy create the set for her Pledge Drive, but it is unclear exactly where this is taking place. In the previous episode, the SOL and the Widowmaker were floating freely in space.

Best Brains went out of their way to avoid anything that could seem like an attack on actor Raul Julia (who had recently passed away at the time of the episode's production) and had Pearl specifically call him a "really wonderful actor."

Callbacks

One of Pearl's network's shows is "Mike Nelson: Lord Of The Dance" based on the opening host segment of the Jack Frost episode, complete with footage.

Quotes & References

Public Pearl intro music.

Same music used on the Mystery Science Theater Hour.
The reference made by Pearl (and the screenshot shown on the monitor) for "Michael Nelson's Lord of the Dance" is a callback to the introductory host segment in Jack Frost.

"Oh, if only she spoke French..."

A reference to how Gomez Addams (probably Raul Julia's most famous role) was always driven mad when his wife Morticia spoke French.

"Oh no, you think Mark Russell is gonna be in this?"

Mark Russell is a fixture on PBS, doing "comedy specials" where, sitting at a red, white, and blue piano, he takes toothless jabs at both political parties, being very careful to offend neither side.

"But I'm signed to play Archbishop Romero!"

A reference to the 1989 film Romero, in which Raul Julia played the assassinated Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Romero.

A reference to an E. coli outbreak that occurred among customers of Jack in the Box fast food restaurants in 1993. Or, alternatively, just a comment on the general unpopularity of the restaurant chain.

(After hearing what hears like voices being played backwards) "Kill myself? OK, no problem."

A reference to rumors about bands using the practice of "backmasking", putting backwards messages into their recordings. In particular, the band Judas Priest was sued by the parents of a teenage boy who committed suicide, who claimed that Judas Priest had hidden the message "Do it" in one of their songs.

"Of all the public television stations in the world..."

In the spirit of Casablanca being key to the movie; Mike parodies one of its most famous quotes: "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

Around the time this aired, Woody Allen was embroiled in various legal entanglements related to the end of his longtime relationship with Mia Farrow, and scandal over the fact he'd left her for Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. Presumably, the grounds for Mr. Allen to sue would be because this is all very similar to his play and movie Play It Again, Sam in which a neurotic guy is given advice on life by a vision of Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca.

Memorable Quotes

[Pearl is holding a pledge drive. Servo is trying to call in, but Mike is holding Servo's arm, stretching out the spring.]

[Fingal's identicube has destructed. Both Fingal and Rick are flying through a portal.]

Mike: Vertigo to hell.

. . .

Servo: You kidding? We'll have an electron sex party right now!

. . .

[Sim-Fingal flies by, arms open.]

Mike: I love you this much!

[Sim-Rick flies by, his hands in his pockets.]

Servo: I don't care for you!

[Fingal (played by Raul Julia) finally awakes in his own body. Apollonia practically lies on him in a serious lip-lock.]

Crow: Eating Raul!

[Fingal (now Rick) is sending the chairman to rehab. Appalonia suggests "doppling" him into Daisy, the baboon Fingal was originally "doppled" as.]

Rick: Daisy's too good for the bastard. He's going on as an anteater!

Servo: Lay off the anteaters! Come on!

Crow: Man!

[Fingal and Apollonia go into yet another lip-lock in this PBS TV movie.]

Servo: Oh, and I guess "PBS" means "Public Boinking System", huh?

[At the end of the movie, all of Fingal's (now Rick's) co-workers are watching "Casablanca".]

Crow [as co-worker]: But I hate this movie. It's on AMC every week!

[The theme plays at the end.]

Mike: And now the news.

[Theme plays again.]

Mike: That was the news.

Video Release

Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in November 2003 as part of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Volume 4, a 4-DVD set with Space Mutiny, Girl in Gold Boots, and Hamlet, the DVD was later pulled in January 2010 due to Rhino no longer holding the rights to distribute MST3K.

The DVD features an introduction by Mike Nelson, specifically produced for the DVD release. The writers made an effort to not excessively mock Raul Julia explicitly for his performance in Overdrawn, since Julia - who was well respected outside of this movie - had died three years before the episode aired.